NHL 13 – EASHL Attribute Change

Occasionally I browse the EA Forums looking for news, videos, comments from the developers or other gamers who play the NHL series. Today I found a post made yesterday regarding changes to attributes for the EA Sports Hockey League, or EASHL.

Hey everyone,

There has been a lot of good discussion about the EASHL recently so let’s keep that up. I recently realized that I forgot to mention that we did a few small tweaks to the EASHL Pro regarding player types and how you can spend your XP. NHL is always tuned using NHL players and teams and we do not have separate gameplay for EASHL specifically. This year we have decided that you can no longer be better than an NHL player in any stats for EASHL, that way we don’t see 99 wrist shot accuracy and power being able to blow shots past goalies as easily. You will no longer be able to have 99 of any stat. We tuned the values based on real life NHL players within their respective player types. For example, for snipers, we have a hard cap at 95 for wrist shot accuracy. The cap depends on the player type and what they “Should” be good and bad at. A Playmaker for example, would be able to get up to a 95 passing, but not up to a 90 rating shooting. We feel that by adding a cap for each stat based on player type does remove some of the freedoms you once had, but also forces people to choose a player type that more or less suites their style of play. We want NHL 13 to feel different with the new skating system, and we do not want people to have unbalanced players by being able to have 99 speed and agility for example.

You will also notice the player overall ratings will be much lower. This is somewhat of an unwanted result of the offline player rating separation that happened, but really the EASHL Pro’s overall rating doesn’t mean anything. The individual stats are the most important.

Also note that these caps were set while using the Boost Slots applied so we ensured that even while using boosts you could not go over an unwanted level. This will result in some people thinking some of the caps are set too low, but you must factor in the +8 boost you would apply to your pro.

This is an absolutely fantastic change. For those of you who play Online Team Play, EASHL, or online 6v6 Leagues this will help bring some balance to player builds. With the present system, there are “broken” builds. Stacking certain attributes to 99 in conjunction with some A button and dangling skill, a lot of players could magically avoid body and stick checks, stick lifts would be ineffective, it made playing the game frustrating and not enjoyable.

Whenever I play offline or versus, which uses NHL players with realistic attributes, the gameplay better emulates realism opposed to the arcade-like nonsense most people experience. Bringing this to EASHL, OTP, and the 6v6 Leagues that exist will greatly improve gameplay and make the experience that much more enjoyable.

Typically, I’ve been very critical of EA on how the NHL Series ends up. There’s always gameplay breaking issues/exploits, glitch goals, server issues, et al. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to EA for actually addressing a major issue that existed in NHL 12, though I still remain skeptical that the game will be without at least one major issue. Here’s hoping I’m wrong, and here’s to actually looking forward to NHL 13, a welcome change from my annual gamer angst.

12 Comments on "NHL 13 – EASHL Attribute Change"

its about whose playing the game not the stats you can obtain to max out. some players are good and some arent, and if your equal up to points, IT WILL SHOW WHO IS BETTER, why dont you play in tournaments or some shit if you think your so sweet and YOU NEED 99 SPEED like its the olympics.. ohhhh cause your such a good nhl gamers and you yourself need all the stats possible, go back to 09 wimps. whether its capped i can still stick n move around you bitchin turds. the game is good with caps, CAP THAT SHIT FROM HERE ON OUT! >> DETROIT VIPERS << 3v3

Fucking bull shit! this game keeps getting worse every year! Caps on the attributes? fucking stupid…it’s for all the idiots that don’t know what player to use. Fuck EA and NHL 13 this year!!! I’ve been playing this game since’09 and i just stopped right now, how about they figure out more important things like people that pause glitch the game and freeze it….now that makes the game not enjoyable, not attribute caps fuck.

Last I checked, there are no NHL players in the eashl, so why do players have to be hamstrung by that bs explanation? Know what’s fun? Playing a game how you want to. Know what isn’t? Realizing you spent 60 bucks to be capped by how someone else wants you to play. Let us play how we want to play, not how some asshole thinks we should. You wanna make the experience less frustrating? Let us kick out people who are inactive or purposely hurting their team. Just stupid fucking logic for ea.

The only critique I have of the caps are that they have two caps. The first where you can only put so many points in before it lists the purchase points as N/A. The second being with +9 attributes from boosts.

What they should have done is set the cap to the +9. No one is going to waste a +1, and there are maybe only a few stats worth the +3. Most people will divy up their +5’s accordingly.

What truly needs to happen is EA needs to revamp the attribute system online and have attributes work cohesively with others so putting 99 in X Y and Z doesn’t give you a super build that can’t be knocked off the puck, can skate through anyone, etc.

I do agree with a vote kick system for OTP. There are some real shit-faced trolls out there. 🙁

These caps are the smartest thing ea has done in in awhile. Anyone complaining about it just abused the two way forward, or doesn’t understand hockey at all. “Let us play how we want to play, not how some asshole thinks we should,” most ridiculous comment of all time, if you want to play a game that comes closer and closer to real hockey NHL 13 is your ticket. Sounds like you need to stick with NHL 12 or maybe 11 when the cross crease one-timer was almost guaranteed.

Yeah, this whole idea sounds nice but in reality it stinks. I feel like I’m playing beer league 13 instead of NHL 13. I take a better backhand in real life than in the video game, which isn’t saying much. Backhand shots are feeble and usually slide on e ice wide of the net. Playing human goalies lost a great deal of its enjoyability since they alway cheat to forehand side knowing the backhand is pathetic.

The EASHL players are slow and unresponsive. I understand for realism but let’s face it, this is a video game and needs to have some enjoyment factor. Watching my guy be too slow to track down a puck unless I use a grinder (who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his pathetic shot is embarrassing and makes for an unemployable experience.

The only reason I buy or play this game is for EASHL and they cap system is awful and makes for sloppy gameplay. Also, the fact that certain attributes rise in cost so rapidly makes it so they are unusable. The fact that I have to resort to putting points in “fighting skill” or “face offs” as a left wing is laughable.

WAHH!! I want to be able to skate through everyone without thinking and get guaranteed undefendable BS garbage! You guys complaining are fucking stupid. If you want a game full of complete trash that you can exploit, go play marvel.

1. Those who against this move are probably the ones who spent their time glitching the system to get their guy as high as they could in all attributes so they completely dominated the new guys solely because you were faster/stronger than them. Most of the guys I see dominate because they have better attributes are hosers and absolutely suck at the game.

2. I really don’t want to be capped because of a few rotten apples. I agree with not having 99 as an option, but we should be able to get there using the boosts – free. As long as they are not “paid for”, I have no problem with boosts of this nature. If +8 or +9 is the max you are going to get out of a boost, then you should be able to get to 97+ as that is literally going to take all of their boost currency and they might be able to get 3 of those stats to 97+. I know many players in the NHL who’d have 3 or more stats at 97+. Plus, if you have 3 stats at 97+ in this game, you are going to completely blow at everything else.